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Bullet Force

The 3 Ship Meta

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So with all the talk and excitement about this upcoming patch that will ruin PVP servers I'd also like to point out a serious flaw in this game that has been with us for quite a while now and that is the ship variety or rather lack of. For a game that prides itself on being a naval game there is depressingly only 3 ships worthy of choosing from when it comes to naval combat. There is the Schooner which is fast but more fragile, the Brigantine which is less fast and the Galleon which is both fast and strong but more expensive.

As a result naval combat after a while feels a bit like deja vu you feel you have already seen all this before. This is also not helped by the fact that in addition to 3 ships we have the incredible variety of just two cannons to select from. What is troubles me about this I have yet to see a single post from the developers acknowledging the problem and certainly none saying they will be adding more variety.

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18 minutes ago, Bullet Force said:

So with all the talk and excitement about this upcoming patch that will ruin PVP servers I'd also like to point out a serious flaw in this game that has been with us for quite a while now and that is the ship variety or rather lack of. For a game that prides itself on being a naval game there is depressingly only 3 ships worthy of choosing from when it comes to naval combat. There is the Schooner which is fast but more fragile, the Brigantine which is less fast and the Galleon which is both fast and strong but more expensive.

As a result naval combat after a while feels a bit like deja vu you feel you have already seen all this before. This is also not helped by the fact that in addition to 3 ships we have the incredible variety of just two cannons to select from. What is troubles me about this I have yet to see a single post from the developers acknowledging the problem and certainly none saying they will be adding more variety.

With the excitement and talk about the changes that are going to FIX PvP, I think you are actually correct. The ships are not even correct historically speed wise and if they were we might have more variety. But beyond that point, we definitely need more variety, and variety of weapons. We have medium cannons and large cannons, where are the small cannons? They exist in history. And what about carronades? They might be weapon options that are not in game, again of a variety of "sizes". I have a decent sized list of other things I have thought about in regards to this very subject. It is a ship game. They are emphasizing this. We need more ship things. We need more ships for sure. 

This is the first post I have seen in regards to this subject (granted I just joined the forums and have not looked for it). And yes it is important in my opinion. 

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Something that I have always wished for in this game was more ships. I think if they added some new ones like one bigger than a brig smaller than a galleon would be cool. So like 2 decks of guns but still 3 sails. I think it would definitely make the pvp more interesting.

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Also- If you look at the ship sizes, both from a build stand point and size stand point we seem to be missing sizes in our current lineup for sure. Beyond adding different ship types of the same size as ships we already have, we have room for a size between the sloop and schooner, the schooner and brig, and the brig and galleon.

sailing-ships-and-boats.gif

 

Other pics and information sites list cutters and a few other types as well. If the ship speeds were more historically accurate even sloops would be usable as fast attack ships. 

And grappling an enemy ship to board would be nice.

Edited by SIEGEGUN
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Just wanna remind the OP that he is quiting . 

Have fun on Ark. Enjoy your pvo/pve over there. I here its sooo intense. They have all kinds of colored dinosaurs and stuff .

Since this is literally the first few months of Early access I would hope more  content is planned 

They just need to convince people to return after the previous offline shit chased em off.

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Sloop of war looks like fun!  Also adding the Frigate and Ship of the line.  First rate Ships of the line need to be so costly its like building the Deathstar.  Should be a rare sight to see. 

Edited by DocHolliday
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3 minutes ago, Back Stabbath said:

Just wanna remind the OP that he is quiting . 

Have fun on Ark. Enjoy your pvo/pve over there. I here its sooo intense. They have all kinds of colored dinosaurs and stuff .

Since this is literally the first few months of Early access I would hope more  content is planned 

They just need to convince people to return after the previous offline shit chased em off.

Yes I agree the OP is... well you know. However I actually DO agree on this subject and I think it is definitely worthwhile discussing. I do not have to like the dude or even agree with him on most things to see he has a good point. Plus this is a subject I am really interested in, I joined the forums for mod and server support and ideas, if my server PSU hadn't decided to die while I was building it (new one on the way) I would probably be modding and barely here. I have a list of mods I plan for ships in particular so feedback from others is great from my perspective.

 

-More ships... cutters, clippers, sloops of war, small brigs, large brigs, carracks, ketch, ship of the line (more? Korean turtleships, junks etc etc)

-More weapons... small cannons, large carronades, medium carronades, small carronades, grappling other ships, (more? we are in a place of magic and some steam punk technology, perhaps different ammo, steam cannons? cursed cannonballs etc etc. </== just throwing out ideas)

-More ship accessories... bow spirits that do something (some small buff of some type, different bow spirits for different small buffs), jib sails, flag masts off the back of your ship (showing your company flag), water pumps for auto bailing (these existed), a ship carpenter takes up a crew space assists in fixing ship (obviously would need to be balanced, requires a carpenters bench and must be mounted there), more plank types (magic enhanced, double thick planks, etc etc obviously would need balancing), steam paddle wheel option, ship oar option (as in galley and galleass)

These are just some ideas, some might be more lame than the others, but I am planning to make a lot of this and then test it on my server then hopefully release. It is a subject that is on my mind. The ships, making them and sailing them and fighting them are my personal favorite thing to do in this game. 

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I'd recommend keeping it focused.  Start tossing in too many things and it gets messy, confusing and usually not all that enjoyable. 

also I am not a fan of mixing realities as much as others are.  If you start going different ship types, weapons, etc then when you start mixing in magic and other crap I get turned off.  I never played ARK since its a weird hodgepodge of crap to me.  Personal opinion obviously.  I'm sure many love that.

Edited by DocHolliday
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2 minutes ago, DocHolliday said:

I'd recommend keeping it focused.  Start tossing in too many things and it gets messy, confusing and usually not all that enjoyable. 

also I am not a fan of mixing realities as much as others are.  If you start going different ship types, weapons, etc then when you start mixing in magic and other crap I get turned off.  I never played ARK since its a weird hodgepodge of crap to me.  Personal opinion obviously.  I'm sure many love that.

This is just a list of ideas. They would be done one at a time. And as a mod the admins could turn on and off different options. 

Yes I understand your view point. I am OK with it, considering this is not a full on caribean pirate sim, but more of a loose themed game with magic and steampunk like tech. I am also a huge sci fi/fantasy nerd so I tend to like that kind of thing anyway. And again any admin could turn off different features they found undesirable. I never played ARK either, believe it or not for the same reasons. I knew a lot of people that played it and I have watched people play, but I was turned off by the same thing. Thank you for your opinion, it is appreciated.

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Have fun with developing that.  Who knows maybe some of your ideas and designs are good enough that the dev team would contact you about putting them in official.  I am sure designing new ship types and weapons would be an area they could use the help on.  I just don't know if they have the bandwidth to add all this stuff quickly as they have a ton of other content to add, tweak and support. 

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9 minutes ago, DocHolliday said:

Have fun with developing that.  Who knows maybe some of your ideas and designs are good enough that the dev team would contact you about putting them in official.  I am sure designing new ship types and weapons would be an area they could use the help on.  I just don't know if they have the bandwidth to add all this stuff quickly as they have a ton of other content to add, tweak and support. 

Oh I will have a blast doing this. I do these kinds of things for fun and as a hobby. Have for decades now. I have a heavy IT and computer tech background, I now have a chronic disease and no longer work so I nothing but time on my hands. I even bought an older full fledged real server specifically to do this and use as a testbed. 

 

LOL I am sure the devs are not looking at my ideas and do not care. As you said in another thread they are very busy.  Nice concept though. I just wanted more ships and things associated with them so figured I would just make them myself since I think the devs have their hands full. This is not the only mods I have working in my brain, this is just the ship related things. I get bored easily now a days. 

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There is a huge gap between a Brig and a Galleon. Let's say a Frigate.

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This would be an easy fix, there's already other ships from mods, it just has to be stat balanced for officials

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Well, a few new cool ships would have been a better Investment of time for the devs instead of developing a slavery based claim system with integrated megatribe protection.

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10 minutes ago, Talono said:

Well, a few new cool ships would have been a better Investment of time for the devs instead of developing a slavery based claim system with integrated megatribe protection.

How many games did u develop so far?

Edited by Willard

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13 hours ago, Mike L said:

This would be an easy fix, there's already other ships from mods, it just has to be stat balanced for officials

There really is not other ships from mods. I have kept a tab on them, there is the Indiaman (which is cool but listed as beta), a mod called ships plus which will be a mod of vanilla ships (currently not functioning), one called heavy ship which is in german and doesn't seem to add any lore ships, looks like it is a mod of current ships, and one called total ships which also is not functioning at all (though it is being worked on). The officials will not be using these things. The devs will add their own eventually. That's my opinion anyway.

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4 hours ago, Talono said:

Well, a few new cool ships would have been a better Investment of time for the devs instead of developing a slavery based claim system with integrated megatribe protection.

Yep. What this game is lacking is content and that is also why a lot of players have stopped playing it. Having only 3 combat ships in a naval game is a bit pathetic to say the least.

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I think an easy temporary fix for this would be to add sub categories to ships. As I said in another thread each ship type could have a default type and then specialized variants for instance you could have:

  • Stock Schooner: Has current attributes
  • Speed Schooner: 20% more speed. 30% less ship plank health
  • Weight Schooner: 20% more weight. 20% less speed
  • Ranged Schooner: 20% more cannon range. 20% less damage. 
  • Tank Schooner: 20% more plank hp. 20% less speed.
  • Gun Schooner: 20% more damage. 10% less range. 20% less plank hp

So on....

This way the devs wouldn't need to add a whole new model and yet still massively increase variety. They could distinguish between various models by way of an icon next to the ship name.

 

Edited by Bullet Force

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12 minutes ago, Bullet Force said:

I think an easy temporary fix for this would be to add sub categories to ships. As I said in another thread each ship type could have a default type and then specialized variants for instance you could have:

  • Stock Schooner: Has current attributes
  • Speed Schooner: 20% more speed. 30% less ship plank health
  • Weight Schooner: 20% more weight. 20% less speed
  • Ranged Schooner: 20% more cannon range. 20% less damage. 
  • Tank Schooner: 20% more plank hp. 20% less speed.
  • Gun Schooner: 20% more damage. 10% less range. 20% less plank hp

So on....

This way the devs wouldn't need to add a whole new model and yet still massively increase variety. They could distinguish between various models by way of an icon next to the ship name.

 

that's useless, you can just use different sails/canon bp etc now.

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On 3/20/2019 at 1:53 PM, Bullet Force said:

I think an easy temporary fix for this would be to add sub categories to ships. As I said in another thread each ship type could have a default type and then specialized variants for instance you could have:

  • Stock Schooner: Has current attributes
  • Speed Schooner: 20% more speed. 30% less ship plank health
  • Weight Schooner: 20% more weight. 20% less speed
  • Ranged Schooner: 20% more cannon range. 20% less damage. 
  • Tank Schooner: 20% more plank hp. 20% less speed.
  • Gun Schooner: 20% more damage. 10% less range. 20% less plank hp

So on....

This way the devs wouldn't need to add a whole new model and yet still massively increase variety. They could distinguish between various models by way of an icon next to the ship name.

 

That can work, but i fear the devs will see this and take the easy way out and tout this as adding all these new ships.  We want different models.  Don't show them this until AFTER they add new models to the game.  🙂 

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I think they have to address the fact that broadside ship fight is not used its put a billion cannons on the rear and front of the ship . they would need to find a way to make it so that there was a speed nuff to ship that have cannons not gunported or some other thing so that it not the current meta of placement of cannons. then they could add ship of the same weight class that have gunport on the rear or front but less on side and role base ships. 

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I don't really understand the issue here. The ships are modular and effectively just small, medium and large frames.

My only issue with it is how brigs seem to have more flexible build restrictions than the other 2.

Edited by Smash

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4 hours ago, Smash said:

I don't really understand the issue here. The ships are modular and effectively just small, medium and large frames.

My only issue with it is how brigs seem to have more flexible build restrictions than the other 2.

So you don't have a problem that a naval game only has really 3 ships to choose from and only 2 choice of weapon?

Well I guess everyone is different some people are content to have very little others not so much.

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31 minutes ago, Bullet Force said:

So you don't have a problem that a naval game only has really 3 ships to choose from and only 2 choice of weapon?

Well I guess everyone is different some people are content to have very little others not so much.

I'm not sure how you only have 3 ships to choose from when the only thing you have limited control over is the length. 

If you think there are only 2 ship weapons then you clearly haven't played the game. 

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